Vattenfall has since 2001 had an R&D project on Oxyfuel technology and in 2006 commissioned a € 70 million 30 MW (thermal) Oxyfuel pilot plant. The CCS pilot plant will produce about 60,000 tonnes of CO2 per year at full load. The separated and liquefied CO2 produced by the pilot plant might be transferred to the CO2 carbon storage facility in the Altmark gas field.

The plants consists of a steam generator with a single 30MW top-mounted pulverised coal burner and the subsequent flue gas cleaning equipment, That is, electrostatic precipitator, wet flue gas desulphurisation and the flue gas condenser.

Operation of the pilot plant commenced operation in September 2008 and the plant is expected to be in operation for 3 years. Further expansion plans include a 250 to 300 MW plant around 2012-2015 and a 1000 MW plant around 2015-2020.

Pilot plant construction continues (2007), Pilot plant commissioning happened in (2008). Plant’s operation started early in 2009. Operation will be closed in the year (2014)

E.ON plans to pursue the development of post combustion technologies with a budget of € 100 million until 2014. Four of its seven projects are planned in Germany in cooperation with Siemens, Flur, Consolv and Mitsubishi. The technology uses monoethanolamine as the solvent for efficient capture of CO2.

One of the projects is located at E.ON’s coal fired power plant in Wilhelmshaven and is scheduled to start operation in 2010. Flor and E.ON Energy have formed a strategic partnership for the development of a retrofitted pilot plant using Flour’s Econamine FG+ technology. The technology uses monoethanolamine as the solvent for efficient capture of CO2.

The pilot plant will be small in scale with only 5.5 MW. In North Rhine Westphalia E.ON Energy will work together with Canadian Cansolv Technologies at its location in Heyden. The objective of this project is again to improve efficiency of post combustion by testing different solvents

Facts:

Country: Germany

Project type: Capture

Scale: Small

Status: Under construction

Capital cost: € 10 million

Year of operation: 2010

Industry: Coal Power Plant

MW capacity: 5.5 MW

Capture method: Post-combustion

Capture technology: Other

Transport of CO2 by: none

Type of storage: Not decided

RWE IGCC Plant with CO2 Storage:

In April 2006 RWE announced the development of an IGCC coal or lignite fuelled power plant. The power plant is expected to have a gross output of 450 MW and integrate CO2 capture and storage. Capture rates are expected to be about 92% or 100g/Kwh net.

If successfully implemented, the plant will be scaled up to produce 1000 MW.RWE is planning to operate the plant by 2014. Investment costs have risen to € 2 billion in this project. RWE plans to store some 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 annually and is currently assessing 3 different locations in the North of Germany for appropriate storage capacity.

In 2008 RWE started the exploration phase and if permissions are granted seismic investigations will start 2009. RWE is also planning to build a pipeline from the plant location in Hürth, in North Rheine Westphalia to Schleswig Holstein.

Since the location is well connected to open cast mines, raw lignite will be the fuel of this power plant. To reduce the water content pre drying will be applied to bring down the moisture content to 12%. As previously mentioned the power plant is expected to have a gross output of 450 MW, with an efficiency of 36% and integrate CO2 capture. Currently this project is in the regional planning procedure.

Facts:Country :Germany

Project type: Capture Storage

Capital cost: € 2 billion

Year of operation: 2015

Industry: Coal Power PlantMW capacity: 450

Capture method: Pre-combustion

New or retrofit: New

Transport of CO2 by:none

Storage site: North of Germany

Type of storage: Not decided

Volume: 2 600 000 tonnes/CO2

RWE’s Scrubbing Pilot Plant:

German utility RWE operates a pilot-scale CO2 scrubber at the lignite-fired Niederaubem power station built in cooperation with BASF (supplier of detergent) and Linde engineering.

The height of the pilot CO2 scrubbing plant (40 m) corresponds to that of the future commercial plant. The plant also comprises all individual components of large plants, but on a smaller scale. The diameter of the absorber column was limited to the size required to obtain representative results.

Depending on the set test parameters, up to 300 kg CO2 per hour can be separated from a flue gas bypass (corresponds to a capture rate of 90 %). An extensive investigation programme conducted under real operating conditions to test the new CO2 solvents developed by BASF will be completed in early 2010.

Facts:

Country : Germany

Project type: Capture

Scale: Small

Status: Under construction

Capital cost: € 9 million

Year of operation: 2009

Industry: Coal Power PlantCapture method: Post-combustion

Capture technology: Amine
Transport of CO2 by: none

Type of storage: Not decided

Volume: 2 000 tonnes/CO2

RWE Goldenbergwerk:

RWE Power is working with RWE Dea to use their knowledge of the exploration of oil and gas for storing natural gas to find suitable geological formations on or offshore. RWE Power is making €2 billion (US$ 2.7 billion) available for its climate protection program until 2014, including spending money on renewable energy and CO2 reduction in developing countries. The chosen site is the Goldenbergwerk site. RWE Dea plans to investigate suitable storage locations in Schleswig-Holstein.

Total cost is €2 billion (US$2.577 billion). RWE has already committed €1 billion ( US $1.3 billion) with €800 million (US$ 1.1 billion) for the power plant and €200 million (US$ 280 million) for the pipeline and CO2 storage operations.

Germanys Vattenfall build a demonstration plant for Carbon capture and Storage technologies at one of the 500 MW blocks of the conventional lignite power plant Janschwalde, in the state of Brandenburg; the Project was started in May 2008.

The Janschwalde lignite power plant consists of six 500 MW blocks. For the demonstration plant one of the blocks, consisting of two boilers, will be equipped with CCS. One boiler will be newly built with an oxy-fuel technology; the other will be retrofitted with a post combustion technology.

The investment for the demonstration is estimated to be € 1 billion. The demonstration plant will produce 300 MW.

The project was announced in May 2008; Feasibility studies were performed in the same year (2008); Application for permits (2009); Construction of new boiler is said to happen in (2011); Full scale Operation to be completed in the year (2015).

Facts:

Company/Alliance: Vattenfall

Location: Janschwalde, Brandenburg, Germany

Feedstock: Coal (lignite) from nearby opencast mines.

Process: Pulverized coal (PC) boilers combusting lignite

Size: 250 MW/ 500MW in future [estimated].

Capture Technology: Oxyfuel combustion and post-combustion

CO2 Fate: Onshore Saline formation

CO2 SINK: Ketzin (Germany)

GFZ Potsdam, as part of the European research project, CO2SINK, began storing CO2 in aquifers at a depth of 600 meters on June 30, 2008. It plans to store up to 60,000 tons of CO2 over two years, at a cost of €15 million.

The CO2SINK integrated project, is supported under the FP/6 framework by the EU commission with a budget of € 14 million, and is the first European Showcase for Onshore CO2 storage. The main objective is to monitor behaviour of CO2 injected into a saline aquifer at 600 meter depth near Berlin. By the end of July 2009, 18.417 tons have been successfully injected.